The Road not Taken by Sabrena

Hey there..been ages since the last time I wrote. Guess, keeping up with the changes around me has taken a toll on this particular project of mine…anyway, where did I left off? Hmm..the hospital.

OK..apparently the real reason my body crashed that day which led me to be treated at the High Dependency Unit (HDU) – pretty much the place they prep people up for surgery or for any cases in which the patients’ condition are not serious enough to be placed in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) – was quite cloudy. But the doctor in charge of my case did highlighted the obvious, it is steroid induced.

This revelation struck me on the potency of over-medication, if there is such a term. You see, every time I was prescribed a drug, I would Google it up to know what I am putting in my body. I am sure you are aware that drugs actually tell certain parts of your body to react in an unnatural way. It could tell the brain to release or reduce certain enzymes or body fluids. The thing is, these prescribed drugs could actually turn your body haywired especially in cases like mine, where I was prescribed to various types of drugs. The best analogy I could think of from the top of my head is imagine what would happen to a ship if the captain has too many people advising him as to how to handle a crisis. Each advisor has his or her own interior motives and each suggestion given would have an adverse effect to the ship in both the long and short run. The best part is, most of the time none of these advisors actually care about the well being of the ship or the crew and passengers.

The ship here is obviously the human body whereas the captain is our brain while the advisors are the drugs and the doctors prescribing them while the crew and passengers would be the internal organs of the human body. Please do not get me wrong. I respect doctors a great deal, and it is an extremely noble profession to be in. However, doctors in general tend to throw medicines at the wall and see which one sticks. These medications prescribed are not tailor-made to your body’s health needs and they are rather generic based on studies and experiments. Hence the reason why some people need to visit their doctors a few times – the meds prescribed are not strong enough or there were allergic reactions etc – before they are cured. Learning and experiencing the side-effects of taking in too much medication first hand opened my eyes.

Previously, whenever anyone suggested alternative medicine, I would shy away without even bothering to think much about it. After all, doctors spend so many years to be qualified to do their job. The night before I was discharged from the hospital, I felt that I do not care about following doctor’s orders any more. The side effects of the meds combination on me were too much for me to bear. I spent half the night questioning God, why me? Seriously, why me? It was a very emotional moment since I have never felt so broken in my whole entire life. The experience shattered my confidence, stripped me financially bare and battered me to the point of wanting to give up fighting. I felt like there was nowhere for me to go and no one whom which I could turn to. I was alone. I do not think I could ever recover from this nor could I ever fully describe it to anyone. I know I could not go through the pain anymore and I would be heartbroken to see if anyone I care about had to go through the same experience. I ended up muffling my cries in the pillow, not wanting to wake Mimi up because I know she would worry and fuss over me.

The very next morning, I told Mimi and Syahidah that I would be open to anything to get better because I was tired of following the logical path to recovery. My autoimmune disorder was only getting worse. I might end up getting cancer (my baby brother passed on at the age of eight due to leukemia and my mum and I were the only ones present during his crucial final hours at the hospital) thanks to my meds knowing that it suppresses my immune system at the bone marrow and so many other worse possibilities. In other words, I do not want my health to be dictated by meds. So when the doctor wanted me to take further tests, I said I wanted to go home; and home I went to that day.

 xoxo,

Invictus